Thoughtful Landscape Design in Rochester & the Finger Lakes
Fink Garden Studios creates unique, immersive outdoor spaces for homeowners across Rochester, the Finger Lakes, and surrounding communities. We believe a beautifully designed garden doesn't just look good — it changes the way you experience your home.
OUR SERVICES
Complete landscape design,
thoughtfully executed
garden Design
Regionally informed plant palettes chosen for seasonal interest, ecological benefit, and long-term beauty across Rochester's full four seasons — from snowdrop to goldenrod.
Outdoor Living
Patios, pathways, walls, steps, and outdoor kitchen spaces designed to flow naturally from your home's architecture — becoming the daily-use destination your property deserves.
Water Features
Pool and spa environments designed as the cohesive centerpiece of an outdoor living system — not a feature dropped into a yard, but a destination fully integrated into the landscape.
Builder Collab.
Seamless integration with your architect, builder, or HOA from the earliest planning stages — ensuring landscape and structure evolve as a single, intentional design.
Lighting Design
Layered lighting schemes designed to extend your outdoor space beyond sunset — dramatizing structure, guiding movement, and creating warmth and atmosphere.
Waterfront
Balancing sightline access, shoreline ecology, and seasonal character to make the most of upstate New York's most extraordinary settings.
OUR PHILOSOPHY
Restorative garden design for the way you want to live
Fink Garden Studios specializes in wellness landscaping — outdoor environments deliberately designed to reduce stress, restore focus, and deepen your connection to the natural world. We believe your garden should do more than look beautiful. It should make you feel better.
OUR PROCESS
Every great garden begins with a conversation
.01
complimentary consultation
.02
design and refinement
.03
build ready
package
what grew from here
Noelle d'Estries
Fink Garden Studios was incredible to work with from start to finish. We couldn’t be happier with our experience. They did an incredible job blending our personal style with the natural landscape of our property and the overall aesthetic of our home. Their plant knowledge is next level.
mark lyons
Mike Fink was an extraordinary partner in our garden project. His thoughtful and creative design, his attention to detail and his superb customer service was unsurpassed. We’d highly recommend Mike without reservation.
FAQ
Questions before you begin?
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Fink Garden Studios offers custom and highly thoughtful landscape designs for residential spaces. Design size can be anywhere from small changes to full scale estate plans and include all aspects of the outdoor spaces including hardscape, soft scape, lighting, kitchens, pool and spa, lakefront, and integration with the interior space.
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We serve clients across the greater Rochester area including Pittsford, Brighton, Fairport, Victor, Penfield, and Webster, as well as select projects throughout the Finger Lakes region. Each garden is designed with local conditions in mind — from Rochester's clay soils and lake-effect light to the dramatic seasonal shifts of upstate New York.
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Every design package includes detailed full-scale drawings, digital or sketch visualizations showing multiple perspectives, comprehensive plant and material lists with species, sizes, and quantities, a written design narrative covering intent and maintenance, and a fully transparent project quote. You'll have everything your contractor needs to build from concept to completion.
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Timeline varies considerably based on project scope — from a compact courtyard refresh to a large-scale estate transformation. We establish clear timeline expectations from the start. We do not produce rapid-fire, generic designs; our approach is unhurried and considered, allowing time for thorough site analysis, material research, and collaborative refinement. -
Fink Garden Studios offers two complementary revisions with each design once the final proposal is presented, allowing clients to fine-tune plant selections, layout details and material choices to ensure the outdoor space fully meets their needs. Should additional changes be required beyond these three revisions, they can be requested for a fee, ensuring clear expectations while still providing flexibility for clients to achieve their ideal garden or landscape.
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Absolutely. We collaborate seamlessly with architects, builders, and HOA-planned developments on new-build projects — integrating landscape concepts into the broader construction program from the earliest stages. By coordinating from the beginning, we ensure the exterior design complements the architecture and meets all permitting and structural requirements.
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Wellness landscaping is the intentional design of outdoor spaces to support mental and physical wellbeing — through restorative planting, sensory pathways, water features, and spaces that invite stillness. Fink Garden Studios integrates wellness principles into every residential design we create in Rochester and the Finger Lakes.
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Restorative garden design is the practice of creating outdoor spaces with human wellbeing as the primary design intention — not just as a byproduct of beauty. Drawing from environmental psychology and decades of research into how natural settings affect the nervous system, restorative landscapes are designed to reduce stress, lower cortisol, encourage gentle movement, and create the conditions for genuine mental restoration. In a restorative garden, every element — the path that invites you to walk slowly, the water feature that masks street noise, the planting that draws the eye into the middle distance — is purposeful in service of how the space makes you feel.
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Yes. Permeable paver design is an important part of our hardscape practice — particularly for Rochester properties where stormwater management, frost heave, and HOA requirements make surface permeability both a practical and aesthetic consideration. We specify materials that handle upstate winters and look exceptional year-round.
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Absolutely — and it's one of the most common goals we hear from Rochester homeowners. Low maintenance landscaping doesn't mean boring. It means smarter plant selection, thoughtful massing, mulch systems that suppress weeds, and hardscape that ages gracefully. We design landscapes that look intentional and cared-for without demanding hours of upkeep every weekend.
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Yes — patio design is one of our most requested services across Rochester, Pittsford, Fairport, and Victor. We design patios that feel like true extensions of your home: proportioned correctly, finished beautifully, and built to withstand upstate New York winters. Materials range from permeable pavers and natural stone to porcelain and brick, always chosen to complement your home's architecture.
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We always say that every design begins with a conversation. One of the highlights of this job is the opportunity to meet new families and understand who they are, how they live, and begin to envision their space. To begin this process simply reach out through our website or contact info. to coordinate a time to meet with one of our designers. We look forward to meeting you!